Sunday, January 1, 2017

Looking Ahead

The
first day of a new year is the perfect time is establish plans for a
long term project. The relevant long term project is gods &
monsters, though if you are interested in television or movies, I
plan to scratch my blogging itch at y other blogs as well. I have
never been one to make specific resolutions on personal betterment.
After all, should you not work towards bettering yourself all year
long not just a couple weeks after resolving to do so and then
forgetting? But I am still goal oriented. Instead of listing
numbered goals, I am just going to muse on what I would like to see
happen.

If
you have been with me for a while, you will know Gods & Monsters
is my second personal blog. The first, Eye of Polyphemus, lasted
from 2003-2013 when my life faced a tad bit of upheaval. I landed in
a nursing home with pretty much nothing and was left to fend for
myself. Within a few months, I acquired a laptop and internet
connection. I wanted to blog again, as I was quite prolific, but my
new life—such that it was—did not fit in with many of the goofier
aspects of the old blog. The blog needed to be buried along with the
other dead aspects of my previous life.

I
was facing a heavy emotional burden brought on by depression by the
spring of 2014. As writing had always been therapeutic, I needed to
start a new blog to focus on discussing my spiritual, mental, and
emotional issues within the writings being cheapened by the partisan
politics, celebrity shenanigans, and science fiction geekery that had
been y bread and butter in previous posts. Blogging is a frivolous
pastime, no doubt, but it an be dragged down further if one is
flippant with producing content.

So
when I started this blog in April 2014, I wanted a more serious tone.
There were serious issues I needed to work through. The need was
there for me to tell my story and explore its effect on me. I dare
say I did that consistently for two-and-half years before purging the
bulk of what I needed to say. Is it all out yet? Probably not.
Catharsis is an ongoing project. I have a tenancy to go off on some
wild, long winded tangents, too. So, yes. The whim could strike me.
But for the last six months or so, I have been looking to expand
without taking away from what I hope is a smarter, more serious tone.

I
have not exactly set the woods on fire with that lately. Witness the
heavy reliance on YouTube videos for content. Quite a few of those
leaned into the celebrity culture I pledged to shun. As I said, I
have been struggling with decent, interesting content over the last
few months. With that in mind, I produced a loose outline over the
lat few weeks o make regular posts for the first few weeks of 2017
with the intention o habit forming.

The
renewed focus has been interesting. I grew weary of covering day to
day as far back a 2012. Yet I still feel the spark of political
science from my college days. I used to to comment on legal issues
frequently. Barely anything of legal importance has appeared on Gods
& Monsters. But issues strangely cone up in my daily life.
Plenty of time to think and read brought a deeper interest in
religion, philosophy, and history with all the implications on the
big picture. I have even much time immersed in creating fiction and
even poetry.

I
have not found my voice yet. But the search certainly has not been
hampered by a lack of enthusiasm. So 2017 will be a year of
expiration through the written word. Those words will be written,
for better or worse, by me. Prepare for much self-indulgent naval
gazing. S noted, blogging is a frivolous exercise in narcissism.
But every now and then, one hopes to write something worthwhile.